


Moments of Quiet

by letthebookbegin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 10:37:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7711759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letthebookbegin/pseuds/letthebookbegin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the world around them stills for a moment, the Paladins remember what they've left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moments of Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic on AO3, so bear with me if the formatting is all weird or something. Feedback is always appreciated!

The Paladins’ days are full, as you would expect of the defenders of the universe. Full of missions and chatter and fighting, practice and eating and flying. But there are moments of quiet, in the minutes before sleep while they wait for their restless minds to still to the tiredness of their bodies, in the emptiness of the ship when they are alone, in the calm before the storm, moments in which the Paladins remember what they miss.

For Lance, it is his family. His eyes close and he sees them, his mother and father and siblings and aunts and uncles and countless nieces and nephews and cousins and how there’s never any moments of quiet around them. He remembers the constant noise, made up of laughter and yelling from all the arguments that never held any weight, meaningless chatter and tears from the little ones, running all around the house and out of it into the puddles and rain because they were always spilling out of whichever building held them. He wonders if the noise is any different without his voice adding to it. He wonders if they miss him as much as he does them.

Pidge thinks of a time she was called Katie, a time when sitting at the table and eating with her parents and brother felt normal, not something so out of reach. She misses her Dad and Matt, of course; she has become used to their faces living behind her eyelids, and now, she knows, she is closer to them than ever before. She thinks of her Mum more and more these days; wonders at how she feels now she’s lost her husband and both her children. Don’t worry, Mum, Pidge thinks. I’ll bring them home to you.

Keith remembers his house. He feels uncomfortable when he thinks of his father, knowing he should miss him, but he barely knows him and he has already formed a closer bond with his fellow Paladins. No, what Keith misses is the house he usually had to himself; small, alone, and quiet. His Earth life was uneventful, but it had a simplicity to it he finds he misses when every second holds the weight of a burden he still isn’t used to carrying.

Hunk wonders what will happen if they never return to Earth. Studying at a boarding school means he is used to being away from home, but he’s never had to deal with the realisation he might never go back. He’d always planned on going into Space eventually - it was what he was training for, after all - but in between that and graduating, he had wanted to cook in the restaurant his aunt owned. For some reason, the idea that he might never become a chef, that he might never cook with Earth food again, stung more than any other. Cooking was where he surpassed everyone else, and he misses the simplicity of it.

Shiro misses a lot. His mother - his old crew - the badge he left in his drawer on Earth - having someone else in charge - and sometimes, he feels a gaping hole of sadness, remnants of a loss he cannot remember. He is afraid to.

In the small moments of quiet, the Paladins remember, and then the moments pass and they are soothed. After all, there is training to do and missions to complete, and they have each other; and at the end of it all, they know they will all return home.


End file.
